


tell me we're not magnetized

by mcmeekin



Category: Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fighting, Fluff, Multi, Mutual Pining, No cheating, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22133947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmeekin/pseuds/mcmeekin
Summary: Ethan and Conner are broken up. Kira is trying to hold the pieces together. Enter Trent, stage left.(A joke about walking into a bar slash coffee shop, what to do when the two boys you're in love with are supposed to be in love with each other, and being stubborn for no reason)
Relationships: Ethan James/Conner McKnight, Kira Ford/Ethan James/Conner McKnight, Trent Fernandez-Mercer/Kira Ford, implied eventual ot4 - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	tell me we're not magnetized

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: brief mentions of alcohol use by adults (no one is ever drunk “on screen”, though), brief implied homophobia from parents (again, not on screen), lots and lots of swearing (they're delinquent children), conner being the dumbest bitch alive (i truly love him with my whole heart; he’s just a dumbass!), trash talking of mr doctor thomas oliver bc i am me and that’s what i do
> 
> title from ‘magnetized’ by emma blackery but song lyrics in the beginning and end are from ‘arms unfolding’ by dodie. it takes about a minute and thirty seconds to listen to that song and boy howdy should you!
> 
> also this fic takes place circa 2008/2009-ish? the time isn’t super relevant but like. cds exist. just fyi. in case ur a baby and are like ‘what is that’.

_ I apologize, but it was only self-defense. _

_ Running away just made sense. _

_ ~~~  _

There’s a joke, about a man walking into a bar. Have you heard it? That’s usually the beginning. “A man walks into a bar...” That’s the beginning of our story, too.

But the bar joke isn’t a story; it’s a joke. Does a joke have a beginning, a middle, more beginning, some more middle, and an end? Our story does.

No, a joke has a set up. And a punch line. Our story has that, too. We’ll get there. But first, the beginning.

It goes a little something like this:

It’s a strange little hole in the wall place that Kira works in. It’s the kind of place you only know about if you know about it, if that makes sense. Not exactly local-exclusive, just… people in the know.

The bar serves regular café drinks during the day and regular alcoholic drinks at night; the little stage gets decorated and drunk people sing karaoke on it. Kira exclusively works day shifts because the owner loves her and wants her to go out with her friends or whatever at night. She doesn’t do that, not really. At most, she, Ethan, and Conner will end up back at right where she spent her day, singing bad karaoke. Hayley (aforementioned owner) will roll her eyes, but doesn’t push her about it. Doesn’t pester her to go out and meet new people or try new things or  _ ‘hey what about night classes’  _ the way her family does. She might talk to Hayley more than her family nowadays, anyway.

Trent is probably what she would consider a regular.

Of course, he wasn’t always. One day he just wandered in off the street and took a seat up front, near the bay window, and it feels like he never left.

It was a slow, meandering kind of morning, the day he dropped into her life. The kind Hayley seems to anticipate and doesn’t over-staff, so Kira has been aimlessly wiping down the bar while one other employee attends the few tables. She sees him drop into the table, but he doesn’t pick up the menu already stationed there. Instead, he pulls a book out of his backpack and proceeds to stare out the window.

It’s not overtly strange behavior. It just… catches Kira’s attention. She glances over at the other waitress, who is busy pouring another cup of black coffee for Table 3. Technically, it’s not her job to go take this guy’s order. But, for whatever reason, she impulsively walks over.

“Welcome to Hayley’s Comet. What can I get for you today?” she asks, stuffing her hands into the pockets of the apron she wears. He looks away from the window and up at her. His eyes feel piercing; she shifts, slightly uncomfortable

“Just a coffee, please.” His voice is light and low. It would be soothing in another context.

She nods, almost stiffly. “Cream or sugar?”

His gaze is unwavering on her. “Maybe some cream would be nice.”

“All right; creamy coffee, coming right up.” She shuffles away, but she can feel his eyes on her back the whole walk to the bar. It shakes her up, but not in a creepy-lecherous-guy-staring-at-her-ass kinda way. Just… shakes her up.

She pours the coffee, grabs the creamer, and straightens her back. Kira Ford is not the type to get uncomfortable around (attractive) guys. Not even a little. So, decisively, she walks back to his table and sets the items down firmly. He’s still looking at her.

She gestures to the rest of the café. “All these empty seats, and you just had to pick the table furthest from the bar, huh?” she jokes. He looks to be her age, and usually her jokes land well with her demographic.

Sure enough, he smiles. “The view is nice from here.”

She glances out the window at the street. It seems pretty normal to her: buildings, people, a flowerpot.

“For drawing, I mean,” he adds.

Some synapses fire in her brain, and she realizes that the book he pulled out earlier is, in fact, a  _ sketch _ book. 

“Oh, you’re an artist!”

He shrugs and finally ( _ finally _ ) looks down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Comic artist, mostly. I do some graphic design stuff on the side, but... I like comic work the most.” He says it with embarrassment laced into his tone, avoiding looking back up at her, like he’s sure she’ll make fun of him or dismiss him or look down on him. She knows that feeling. She  _ lives _ that feeling. Her chest burns.

“That’s really, really cool.” She tries to put as much sincerity in her tone as possible. She thinks it must work because he smiles up at her again with just a touch of hesitancy. “Well, don’t let me interrupt your work, then.” She smiles back at him, still genuine. “I'm Kira, if you need a refill or anything.”

She’s already turned away to go back to the bar when she hears, “I’m Trent.” She turns back around to look at him, and it seems like he said it back impulsively, because he looks embarrassed again. 

She barely suppresses a laugh. “Nice to meet you, Trent.” She gives him a little wave before finally going back to her assigned job.

So, anyway, Trent’s a regular now. And maybe, kind of, her friend. Sort of. He’s getting there. He claims the lighting in the café is good for his sketch practice and line work and other art words that Kira doesn’t understand but maybe looks up on her break  _ you can’t prove anything with those suggestive glances you keep sending my way Hayley- _ \- but she doesn't have a lot of time to really think about Trent and what he is to her.

She spends most of her time these days purposefully not thinking about The Conner and Ethan Thing. And that takes a lot of energy.

They both come and see her at the café all the time, but they never manage to run into each other accidentally. Which almost strikes her as improbably odd. Do they text each other beforehand to make sure they don’t run into each other accidentally in public? Do they text Hayley? Do they have a Kira-schedule? This last thought is the most troubling, but, to be fair, she has a Conner-schedule in her planner, so… maybe she has no room to talk.

Anyway they both come by enough that Trent picks up on it. In the wrong way.

[I promised you a joke, didn’t I? Here’s the set up.]

It’s a crazy morning. She missed her alarms because her phone charger decided to stop working in the middle of the goddamned night and therefore her phone died and  _ therefore _ didn’t ring any of her alarms and she only woke up when Ethan shattered a plate in the kitchen and sliced his hand open and also she had to take the bus to the car shop to pick her car up since its battery died on her and had to get it replaced so she completely forgets about her audition that afternoon until she gets to work (only ten minutes late, by some miracle) and Trent is already there and says--

“Oh hey Kira. Your boyfriend came by, asked if you were in yet.” He gestures to the back of the shop where Hayley is cleaning a table. “He gave her the thing you left at home.”

She looks between Trent and Hayley for a few seconds before it clicks. “Oh! Ethan! My music! Oh, uh, he’s not… no. Not my boyfriend.” Her brain feels like Ethan’s laptop when he tries to do too much on it in one day: overheating, lagging, making funny noises.  _ Boyfriend? Not her boyfriend. _

Trent raises his eyebrows at her spluttering. “Oh. My mistake. Then is the other one your boyfriend?”

“The other one?”

“Tall, blond-ish, rude one?”

She blinks at him, her brain still sluggish. “Conner? No. I don’t have a boyfriend.” The blue screen in her brain clears long enough for her to quip, “And if he was my boyfriend, don’t you think I would be mad about you calling him rude?”

Trent shrugs, a serene smile spreading on his face. “I am many things, but I won’t be accused of being a liar, Kira.”

She narrows her eyes at him and huffs, “Fine,” before moving to put her stuff down and pull her apron on and try to calm her anxiety spike from this morning down to a dull roar. It’s not a busy morning, thank God, so she just grabs things at random to clean or straighten. Her brain keeps looping Trent calling Ethan (then fucking  _ Conner _ ) her boyfriend.  _ Boyfriend? Why would he even think-- _

“So why did you need… Ethan, was it? Why did you need him to bring you music?”

She glances down the bar to where Trent is sitting. He looks open, curious. Nothing interrogatory in his gaze.

“Ethan’s my roommate. I have an audition this afternoon, and this morning was chaos, so I must have left my tracks at home.”

“You’re a musician?” He looks a little shocked, but mostly impressed.

“Oh, sorry, did that never come up?” She laughs a little then does a tiny exaggerated curtsy. “Kira Ford, college drop out and try-hard, wannabe musician, at your service. I’m terribly sorry to break it to you, but being a barista just isn’t my passion.” She sighs dramatically. “It breaks Hayley’s heart if you bring it up to her--”

“No it doesn’t,” Hayley herself interrupts. She hands a CD to Kira. “Your tracks, madame.” She mimics Kira’s curtsy and rolls her eyes before walking into the backroom. 

Trent laughs at the display. “Hayley seems cool.”

Kira smiles as she puts the CD out of harm’s way. “Yeah, she offers me gigs sometimes. She’s really supportive.”

“What kind of music do you do?” Trent asks, and he sounds like he genuinely wants to know, not like he’s just humoring her or asking because it’s polite. The tips of her fingers feel warm.

She shrugs, trying to pay more attention to the countertop she’s cleaning than to his gaze on her. “All kinds. I usually write whatever the guitar tells me to, you know?”

His eyes light up. “You write it all yourself?”

She nods, trying not to be shy about it. “I sometimes work with producers and co-writers, too, but usually a song starts with just me and the guitar.”

“Wow,” Trent breathes, looking at her like-- like she just did a backflip right in front of him. Like she just scaled a building and shrugged it off. ( _ Like he likes you _ , says a tiny voice in the back, but she shoves it away.) “That’s amazing.”

She smiles ruefully. “Thanks. I'm just trying to get a label to think that, too.”

“Well, I'd love to hear your songs sometime, if you’re ever comfortable with that,” Trent says, hesitant.

Kira presses her lips together to keep from smiling too big ( _ does her heart always beat this fast? _ ) and nods. “Sure. I can bring you a CD.” She juts her chin vaguely in the direction of his sketchbook, which is lying next to him on the bar. “I'd love to see some of your comics, if you’re ever comfortable.”

She thinks the tips of his ears turn pink as he smiles. “I'll bring you something more finished than my sketches, okay?”

She nods, grinning big. “Okay.”

“Oh, my God,” Hayley mutters as she brushes past Kira on her way out to the dining area again. “Get a room.”

(Kira inhales sharply and aims a kick at her, but she’s already out of reach. Trent doesn’t seem to notice the comment, thankfully.)

The audition goes… okay, she guesses. It’s like always, where they seem interested and polite, and they say they’ll call her later. But the thing is, she never gets called when they say that, so she’s not super confident about it. She heads home, not exactly dejected; just tired. She knows Ethan won’t be home until late because of a project deadline at work, so she’s already anticipating ordering in and taking a long bath, but there on her apartment doorstep she finds--

“Conner.”

She doesn’t say it like a question, because she’s not exactly surprised to see him. This isn’t the first time she’s found him sitting on her welcome mat on a night when Ethan is out late or visiting his parents or on a date-- but that last one only happened once, and Conner turned up drunk (she didn't let him in). Again, she wonders idly about if they text (maybe a Google Calendar? Custody papers concerning her?)

“Kira,” Conner responds from his seated position. “How was the audition?” He holds up the case of beer he brought. “How many of these do you need?”

She rolls her eyes. “Why do you always assume it goes badly?”

He raises his eyebrows. “So it went well?”

She kicks him (softly). “No.”

He smiles serenely. “Then, aren’t you glad I brought them?”

She rolls her eyes and opens the door too fast for him to sit up, so he falls inside. It makes her happy, briefly, so she doesn’t offer to help him up. Instead she drops her stuff and belines for the takeout menus they keep at their kitchen counter. “What do you want?” She calls over her shoulder. “That awful Thai place again?”

“Oh, God yes. If I don’t spend the next 24 hours on the toilet, it’s a wasted night,” Conner responds as he plops the beer on the counter.

Kira sighs and reaches for the phone. 

Later, the food’s been eaten, Kira has had one beer to Conner’s three, and they’re lazily lying on the couch watching reruns of Jeopardy. Conner’s head has ended up in her lap somehow. She feels most fond of Conner in moments like these, when he’s sleepy and quiet and just enjoying a moment. They not touchy feely the way she and Ethan are, but times like this, she’s comfortable carding her fingers through his hair lightly, always lightly. Touching him any harder feels like pressing your fingers too hard against a blown glass ornament. Everything could shatter with too much outside pressure.

She looks at the clock on the wall, then back down to Conner’s head. She sighs.

“Okay, sleepyhead. Time to get moving. Ethan will be back soon.”

Conner doesn’t move, doesn’t visibly react. His eyes are closed and his breathing is even. She almost thinks he’s fallen asleep before he says, “He’ll pull an all nighter for the project he’s on.” And, if anything, he seems to settle in more comfortably. She blinks down at him, bewildered by this statement (shared Google Calendar just inched its way up the list).

“You seem pretty sure about that.” She resumes carding her fingers through his hair, reaching for her internal sense of equilibrium. His statement threw her way off.

Conner doesn’t respond. Doesn’t open his eyes. Silences between the two of them range for wildly uncomfortable to entirely too comfortable; this one lands more close to comfortable than not.

Finally, “I’ll leave after this episode. Promise.”

Her fingers tighten in his hair without her permission. Possessive. Trapping.  _ Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave-- _

“Yeah, okay,” is what she says. “Just one more episode.”

When he leaves, he doesn’t offer to help clean up the mess he’s leaving in her apartment (and does that feel like a metaphor or just laziness?), but does turn around at the door and ask, “We’re on for the movies tomorrow, right?”

He’s hanging in her door frame, every inch of him casual and relaxed. Not a bit bothered. Doesn’t care one way or the other if Ethan canceled on their regular movie night this week because sometimes he just can’t bring himself to sit in the same dark room as Conner for two hours.

She smiles in a way she hopes is just as casual. “I’m only canceling if you two make me watch  _ The Dark Knight _ again.”

He rolls his eyes theatrically and says, “Cool, pick you up after your shift,” and then swings out of her door frame just to shout from down the hall (and goddammit Conner, other people _live_ _here_ ) “It’s a cinematic masterpiece, and we’ve only seen it twice!”

She shuts her front door pointedly.

Opens up her phone.

Texts,

_ Twice is too many times. _

Smiles like a sixteen year old with a crush on the soccer team’s golden boy when he texts back,  _ fuq u kira _ (like a sixteen year old soccer team golden boy).

(Ethan texts her much later, telling her he’s staying at work overnight to finish the project he’s working on by the deadline. It’s enough to make her wonder.)

There’s a call in at work, meaning she’s the only one on the floor, but it will be slow, and she doesn’t care. Besides, Hayley will come out and help if needed. When she gets to work as the previous shift is leaving, there’s an Ethan-shaped pile of clothes slouched over the counter.

“Was the project that rough last night?” she calls over to it, searching for signs of life while tying her apron.

The pile grunts but does not move. She rolls her eyes, already moving to start pouring him his usual sugar-filled morning monstrosity.

A  _ ding _ as the door opens. “Kira! Hey!” That’s Trent’s voice, but for once he isn’t the center of her bar/coffee-shop universe. She flashes a (genuine, heartfelt) smile in the direction his voice came from and focuses back on her task of caffeinating Ethan.

Ethan only rouses when she puts the cup directly in front of him. He blearily stares at it for a solid thirty seconds before sipping from it without picking it up. Like a giant toddler. Kira resists rolling her eyes again, and finally turns to find Trent. Thankfully ( _ why thankfully? _ ) he is seated at the bar, only a couple of seats down from Ethan. He is already sketching in his notebook, not looking at her or Ethan.

“Hey Trent,” he looks up at her, a smile at the ready. “Sorry, I had to feed the beast or he might have slain me.” She rolls her eyes now, smiling while she does. How can she not smile when he’s looking at her like that?

“I resent that,” Ethan says grouchily, sipping on the edge of his cup still.

“Shut up, or I’ll charge you for the drink,” she threatens, but there’s no real bite in her words. Trent’s smile twists up at the corners, like he’s in on some private joke. Kira guesses that the private joke is that she’s a softie. “What do you want today?” she asks. Trent’s orders aren’t predictable like Ethan; she can’t whip him something up without asking.

“Hm. I think a latte will be fine today; thank you, Kira. But what do I have to do to get the roommate special?” His eyes are glittering with mirth. “Drinks with just  _ threats _ to pay? Sweet bargain.”

“You have to deal with living with her first,” Ethan says, voice once again muffled by his arms.

Kira throws an ice cube at the top of his head as she goes to make Trent’s drink. She can hear Trent laughing, and she’s fiercely glad her back is turned so neither of them can catch her smile. She’s debating on how best to slip a free food item over to Ethan who most certainly did not eat last night or this morning when the bell above the door chimes to indicate another customer has entered. She throws a “welcome to Hayley’s Comet pick a seat” rapidly over her shoulder while focusing on the drink she’s making. She plops it down in front of Trent and looks up to see where the person landed but all she sees is--

Conner.

He’s standing in the middle of the café, blinking at her like she’s the part of this that’s confusing.

“Conner,” she says, out loud, like an idiot, because that means  _ Ethan-- _

(Ethan, who hadn’t slept last night. Ethan, who wasn’t emotionally prepared to see his ex-boyfriend first thing in the morning. Ethan, who gets a whole  _ full  _ week to psych himself up to act normally for like two hours in a dark room in front of the boy who broke his heart into a thousand tiny little pieces years ago but now has to look at him just short of his full week’s notice--)

“Conner, is it?” Trent says, cutting off the eye contact Ethan and Conner have been uncomfortably making for right around a full twenty seconds. “It’s good to see you again. I believe we’ve met briefly.” Kira might be in love with Trent ( _ file that thought away, though, this is not the moment _ ).

Conner appears to look at Trent with great difficulty. “Oh, hi. Trent, right? Yeah good to see you too. I’m sorry, I just--” He looks at Kira now, his eyes almost helpless. He obviously didn’t think he was going to be seeing Ethan here any more than Ethan thought he was going to be seeing Conner (so, scrap the Google Calendar after all). “I left my wallet on your counter last night.”

She stares at him. Her anger is catching up in fits and starts. “Oh. Did you.” It’s not a question.

Conner flinches, to his credit. Usually her anger glances off of him, but he knows he’s wrong here. “Can I.” He clears his throat. “Can I just get your keys to go get it? I’ll give them back tonight when I pick you up.”

She hopes her gaze burns him. “They’re in my car. I’ll have to go get my purse.” She stares at him a moment longer for good measure, then heads to the breakroom to get her stuff. She realizes belatedly that this leaves Ethan alone with the bastard (well, almost. Trent is there. And he seemed helpful earlier).

But when she comes back out front, Conner has moved closer to Ethan.

She used to feel like she was intruding on a private moment every single time she walked up to Conner looking at Ethan when Ethan didn’t know he was looking. She feels it again, for the first time in years, walking back up to the counter.

Conner’s gaze is soft around the edges when he looks down at Ethan, who is resolutely staring down at his cup. “Did you remember to eat last night?” Conner’s tone is just as soft as his eyes, which just infuriates Kira further.

Ethan’s shoulders stiffen, just slightly. He doesn’t look up as he replies, curtly, “Yes.”

Conner nods, even though Ethan can’t see. “Good. That’s good,” he mumbles, almost to himself.

“Conner. Outside. Now.” is how she announces her re-appearance. She catches a glimpse of Trent’s wide-eyed stare as she exits with Conner in tow, and she winces. She’s never really been scary-Kira in front of him until now. She mouths  _ sorry _ at him but isn’t around to see if he responds.

As she stalks out to her car, she considers the scene that just unfolded. Kira has tried every flavor of Conner-and-Ethan. Has seen every facet of them. They’ve been many things over the course of their friendship, relationship, and post-relationship. Post-relationship, she’s seen them cordial, friendly, personable, almost-but-not-quite the same Conner-and-Ethan from their friendship. They’re snarky like they used to be, they talk to each other comfortably, they look each other in the eyes, they laugh at each other’s jokes, they address each other. In public, they’ve acted like friends, family, occasionally her boyfriends to get creepy guys away from her.

This is the first time she’s seen them act like exs.

She reaches her car and yanks the door open. Roots around in there until she can pull out her spare key. (She learned, the hard way, not to give Conner her own personal key. He forgets to give things back despite promises. For years. She had already moved when he gave back the last one.)

She thrusts it into his chest, anger sparking off of every part of her.

“Fuck you,” she says, inelegantly.

He stares at her incredulously and doesn’t take the key. “What do you mean,  _ fuck you _ ? How was I supposed to know he was here?”

“I don’t give a shit that you showed up when he did; I give a shit that you  _ talked to him _ and made him uncomfortable.”

Conner’s laugh is an off key note. Bad. Wrong. Awful. “What, made him uncomfortable by showing concern for him? You know, like a best friend does?”

“You’re his best friend?” She barks out a sound that was trying to be a laugh in response to his awful one, but maybe ended up as a scoff or maybe just a scream.

“Yeah. I’m his best friend.” Conner’s eyes are hard, unyielding. She stares back at him for several moments.

Here’s what she wants to say:

_ So it was you who held him while he cried all night after you dumped him? _

_ So it was you who cut him off before he got drunk enough to dial your number for the next two weeks? _

_ So it was you who called him every night to make sure he didn’t feel lonely before bed because he hates sleeping alone? _

_ So it was you who let him move in when he realized he wasn’t going to get to live with you? _

Here’s what she says: “Best friends don’t break each other’s hearts.”

She drops the key on the ground and goes back inside without looking at him.

Ethan’s grabbing his stuff to leave when she makes it back inside. She’s suddenly, violently glad that there’s no one else besides Trent in this café; she couldn’t trust strangers with the hollow look on his face. Trent’s sketchbook is still on the counter, but Trent himself is gone. She can’t think about it for long.

“Ethan,” she says, but she’s not sure where her sentence was going to go. He looks up at her and smiles, an awful painted on smile that she doesn’t believe for one moment. She reaches for him without thinking, almost hugs him but thinks better of it. Brushes invisible dust off of his hair and shoulders before saying, “Fuck that guy; never eat again just to spite him.”

Ethan laughs, and it’s genuine. Something loosens in her chest that she didn’t know was tight. Ethan reaches out like she did, maybe for a hug, but he just brushes invisible dust off of her too, then grabs at strands of her hair and twists them idly. He’s quiet for a long time, just playing with her hair. Finally he says, “I’m going to go eat something more substantial than coffee. I’ll text you where you and Conner can pick me up from for movies tonight.”

He moves to leave, but she catches his hand (and, God, had he always looked so striking in the mid-morning sunlight?) and says, “You don’t have to go tonight, if you don’t want to.”

He looks at her for another long moment before asking, “Was he really over last night?” She nods, barely. He grins, big and real. “Good. I’m always worried I ruined you being normal with him--” 

She does hug him, now, just so he’ll shut up. The statement brings back bad memories, rotten ones, full of blank stares at empty walls and Ethan saying,  _ “what did I do that ruined him, what did I do that was so terrible he couldn’t even tell me, what did I do--” _

She can’t even reassure him that he didn’t do anything, because she doesn’t know what happened either.

Trent emerges from the direction of the bathrooms about five minutes after Ethan leaves. The timing is non-suspicious enough that she could believe he really did just have to go while they had a heartfelt moment. But she’s always suspicious, which Ethan says is one of her best qualities. So she’s ready for him to ask her about the Conner-and-Ethan Thing.

But he doesn’t.

He smiles at her, genuine as always, takes a sip of his drink, and goes back to sketching. She cleans glasses. After a few minutes, he asks her how her audition went. She stops being suspicious and just talks.

Trent doesn’t ask. Not when Ethan comes by every other shift to hang out. Not when Conner is there three days in a row. Not even when Conner and Ethan come in together and do their best impression of regular friends. Trent doesn’t ask, doesn’t ask, doesn’t ask.

But then, one day, he does.

It’s about three movie nights later, a slow early-afternoon shift, when Trent is the only “customer” (even though he paid for and finished his one and only drink about two hours ago) there when he looks up from his sketchbook abruptly and says, “I have a question.”

Kira looks over at him and laughs at the absurdity of him saying that. “Okay, I have an answer. No guarantees it’s a good or right one.”

Trent flashes a smile back at her, but mostly he looks hesitant, thoughtful. He bites his lip like he’s debating. “I'm sorry in advance if this is too…personal. Or weird. Or weirdly personal.” He chuckles, probably at himself, before continuing, “But I'm just curious how you three…happened?”

“You three meaning Conner, Ethan, and me?” She smiles at him as gently as she can while she says it, trying to let him know that it’s okay to ask, that she’d tell him anything, ( _ that she likes-- _ )

( _ Full stop on that line of thought, Kira. _ )

He laughs again, shrugging kind of helplessly like he feels bad for even thinking about it. 

“Don’t sweat; people wonder all the time,” Kira says. She puts the rag she was using to wash glasses down and rests her chin in her palms, elbows on the counter supporting her weight. “We’re not exactly what you expect from friends.”

Trent looks more relaxed now, which is good. Kira doesn’t want him to feel stressed out. About anything. Ever. “I thought you might have met as kids or something, but you told that story to Ethan the other day about your childhood best friend…” he trails off, shrugging again.

“We met in high school. In detention.”

Trent blinks. “I'm sorry, you met where?”

She straightens up, laughing. “Don’t look so shocked! Bad girls like me get detention all the time.”

Trent laughs again ( _ will he keep doing that? _ ) before holding his hands up in a surrender gesture. “Hey, I would never doubt your bad girl status. But Ethan? In detention?” He appears to think for a moment. “Actually,  _ Conner _ ? In  _ detention _ ? He reads as total prep-school can-do-no-wrong favorite son archetype.”

She rolls her eyes. “Conner was  _ terrible _ in high school. Actually, Conner is terrible now, just with a job and responsibilities. But this time it really wasn’t his fault. He just skipped a little class, which, who hasn’t?” She waves her hand dismissively. “But there was a new school principal who just hated children. And she really had it out for us, for whatever reason. She wanted us to join a service club to ‘atone for our crimes’,” she says, dropping her voice down comically to imitate the principal. Trent wrinkles his nose playfully in distaste. “So we joined the paleontology club and volunteered at the local museum together. Every Wednesday.”

“I'm sorry the what club?” Trent sounds baffled.

“Paleontology.”

“That existed?”

She smiles at him secretively. “We were the only three members. Well, plus Dr. O, but he was the sponsor, so I don’t think he counts.”

“I’ve heard you talk about him before,” Trent says, nodding. “He sounds really cool.”

Kira laughs. “No, he’s really not. But we love the old geezer anyway. Really encouraged us all to chase our dreams and all that. He set me up with this job, actually. He and Hayley go way back.”

Trent smiles. “That’s awesome.”

“No, it’s really not; he’s a motherfucker, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.”

Trent cackles, actually throws his head back laughing. “Kira!” he exclaims when he recovers. “Are you supposed to swear on the clock?”

She scoffs. “Hayley calls him a motherfucker on the clock all the time. Whatever. Does that satisfy your curiosity, then?”

Trent nods, still smiling from his outburst. He picks his pencil back up to continue his sketch of the empty coffee mug in front of him. Then he pauses. Doesn’t look back up, but asks, casually, “So did Conner and Ethan… were they… involved? In high school?”

Kira stares down at his sketch instead of at him. “Yeah. In a big way. Very in love, very gross. Couldn’t stand them.” She knows her tone belies her annoyance. 

“Why did they break up, then?” His voice is as soft as his pencil strokes, filling in the handle of the coffee mug on his sketchbook page. And of course he knows they broke up; he saw the fall out in front of his eyes. Anyone would have seen it in the tense set of Ethan’s shoulders, in the line of Conner’s mouth. But she wouldn’t trust anyone else with these secrets, with her secrets.

Kira trails her finger around the rim of a random mug in front of her, not looking him in the eyes. “I don’t know. Conner won’t say.” His pencil stills. She imagines he must look at her with a questioning look, but she’s not looking at him still. “He just... broke up with him. Stopped answering my calls, stopped answering Ethan’s. Disappeared for three months. Then, showed back up with a local coaching job, apologized, and asked if we could all stay friends.” She looks up now, shrugs helplessly. “Ethan’s never been able to say no to him.” 

“What about you?” Trent’s expression is open, curious, nonjudgemental (just like always).

“What about me?” She’s maybe too defensive (just like always).

“Have you ever been able to say no to him?”

She presses her lips together tightly, sucks in a breath through her nose. Looks away. Shrugs. “More than Ethan, anyway.”

Trent lets it go. Asks about the weird scaly tattoo Ethan has on his arm instead. Dissipates the tension, makes her feel better, gets her laughing. (And God, God, God, she might be in love with him.)

[The joke gets funny eventually, I promise. Just bare with me. But first, even more beginning.]

Conner used to ask her to marry him once a week.

He did it specifically to piss her  _ and _ Ethan off, though she suspects that much of Ethan’s annoyance was, at first, jealousy and then, pretense. And she suspects Conner wanted to piss Ethan off out of, at first, jealousy and then, pretense. No one had ever taught Conner that pulling on your crush’s pigtails didn’t make them like you (he didn’t have many strong female role models in his life before Kira).

Kira knew, right from the word  _ go _ , that Conner and Ethan were going to date. So the idea of either of them being jealous of the other spending inordinate amounts of time with  _ her _ was absolutely ridiculous to her. And they escalated by just… trying to spend even  _ more _ time with her. Ethan showed her the video games he made first. Conner asked her for help on homework first. Ethan asked her to go to the new movies he wanted to see pointedly in front of Conner. Conner constantly proposed. You know. Normal high school petty jealousy shit.

He started to do it off-hand, whenever she did something particularly impressive or helpful. Just  _ ‘holy shit that was cool Kira will you marry me’ _ kind of dialogue. But when he started to pick up on just how much it annoyed both Kira (and Ethan), he started to get bigger and bolder with his proposals. First there were fake rings involved. Then flowers and candy. Then candlelight dinners in the middle of the goddamn cafeteria. At the height of their high school careers, as freshly minted Juniors, he had the whole marching band and football team involved in his proposal.

Kira got a girlfriend that week, and it was only kind of out of spite. 

(She’s was a nice girl, and they dated for about three months before breaking up amicably; Kira suspects that she is quite literally the only woman on earth who can tolerate being in Conner and Ethan’s combined presence for more than ten minutes at a time. And, unfortunately, dating Kira meant you had to spend a lot of time with Conner and Ethan.)

Anyway, it was around this time that Kira decided that maybe, just maybe, she should point out to Conner why Ethan was so annoyed by him constantly proposing to her.

She ended up not having to be so magnanimous because about three weeks into her new girlfriend, she found Ethan and Conner kissing in the backseat of Conner’s car.

Which.

Was great. That’s exactly what she expected to happen, exactly what she wanted.

She made the mistake of asking Dr. O why it felt like her chest was collapsing inward (but, like, less eloquently), and he laughed at her and told her she must be jealous of one of them. He suggested she might have a crush on fucking Conner of all people. She told him, in no uncertain terms, that if she had a crush on either of them (which she does  _ not _ ) that it would be Ethan, the superior option. She didn’t ask Dr. O for advice again.

High school sucked, rather spectacularly, for the three of them. Separately and together. Home shit (Conner’s dad remarried and stopped talking to him, Ethan’s mom told him that Conner wasn’t welcome in her home, Kira’s parents never even found out about her girlfriend), school shit (Ethan’s rotating cast of bullies, Kira’s fluctuating grades, Conner’s soccer trials and tribulations), all kinds of shit (worrying about the future, worrying about the past, worrying just to worry). But some of the sucking is what made them stick like they did. Lots and lots of people give up their high school friends once they move on to their college friends, but not them. Dr. O used to say they were made of the same stupid, stubborn stuff (and Conner would always counter, “No, we’re made of the same stupid, stubborn  _ shit _ , Dr. O,” just to hear him sigh in disappointment). He was probably right; they’re probably only still friends out of spite and malice towards the society that told them they wouldn’t be friends anymore after high school.

But, God, she can’t think of a better decision she’s made out of spite.

They went to the local college together (local college because Conner was in love with Reefside, Ethan was in love with Conner, and Kira was denying maybe possibly being in love with both of them), joined the same clubs, ran in the same circles, started doing go-to-the-movies nights on Thursdays. Kira stopped going to college before sophomore year. Got her job at Hayley’s Comet. And Conner and Ethan sat with her (and sometimes held her hands) through all the phone calls to her parents, who moved out of Reefside the moment she moved out of their house. Who couldn’t wait to get away from their weird little gay daughter ( _ “That’s not true, Kira,” _ Dr. O’s voice comes through.  _ “I’m sure they had other reasons--”  _ She always cuts his voice off there, in her head.)

But Conner and Ethan were always there for her, no matter her choices in a way her real family never was. Until, they weren’t. Until it was just Ethan for three months, while she worried herself fucking sick over both of them but couldn’t let them know because she was supposed to be the one who didn’t get her heart broken in the situation.

But she did. Which brings it around to the present, where Ethan is waiting for her at home and Conner is halfway across the city by himself. They’re all lonely, miserable little creatures because of some unknown change of heart on Conner’s part, and she can’t even hate him for it. She should, shouldn’t she? She should.

[That was the set-up. Here’s the punchline.]

Kira comes home after her talk with Trent with too many thoughts in her head. Her feelings have the texture of a water balloon: floaty, yet weighty; unmanageable when held; aqueous and waterlogged.

The sight of Ethan lounging on the couch, idly flipping through channels with a bowl of chips forgotten on his left makes her thoughts quiet for a moment. Enough to smile fondly in his direction.

“How was work?” he asks, not pausing his channel flipping.

She sighs. “Oh, you know. Same stuff. You?”

He returns her sigh. “Oh, you know. Same stuff.” He puts down the remote, seemingly finding a channel he approves of. She glances over his shoulder to see it is a house hunting show. “I keep figuring one of these days video game marketing will be less.. boring? But it never is.”

Kira pats his head comfortingly as she passes, going to the kitchen to get dinner. One microwaved meal later, she’s on the couch with him, settling as close as possible. Maybe she’s cold. Or maybe she’s just feeling too much.

She eats her dinner, watching the show without commentary. At some point, Ethan remembers that he has chips and resumes eating them. When she finishes eating, she gets up and puts her dishes away, only to then settle back in just as close on the couch to Ethan. He puts his arm around her to pull her closer without taking his eyes off the TV.

After a few minutes, he says, “Are you doing okay? You feel kind of… sad tonight.” It’s casual enough that she could easily brush him off, but if she’s being transparent enough that he points it out, she owes it to him to at least say  _ something _ . But she’s not even sure she knows how to describe her own feelings.

“I’m just—” She stops. Laughs sharply. Shakes her head.

“What is it?” Ethan asks, looking at her and smiling small at her sudden mirth.

“No, it’s stupid.”

“Nothing you feel is stupid, Kira.” He says it so seriously, with such surety, that she stops smiling suddenly.

“I was just going to say I’m just... homesick. Which is stupid, because I’ve lived in the same place my whole life. I am home.” She shakes her head again, avoiding his eyes. She hopes he’ll find it funny.

He doesn’t laugh, though. “Homesick for high school, maybe?”

“No, fuck that,” she says sharply, but this time she does look at him, and she sees his gaze falter like she’s hurt his feelings somehow. This, of all things, makes her speak freely, almost stumbling over her words in her haste to get them out. “Homesick for you, maybe.”

He doesn’t look confused by that, even though it confuses her. Hesitantly, he says, “Just me?” She’s certain this next part will hurt his feelings again, but she’s already been too honest. Might as well commit to it.

“Homesick for us, I mean. For you and me... and Conner.”

He looks at her for another moment, the look in his eyes unreadable. Finally, he nods, like this was the answer he expected the whole time.

Kira blows out a breath, but she doesn’t remember deciding to hold it in the first place.

Ethan has only been on one date since Conner. It was just a few days after Conner’s return, and he never called the girl back after it. So Kira is a little surprised when Ethan tells her he won’t be home after work because he’s got a blind date his coworker set up.

Not a little surprised. Shocked. Reeling. (Jealous?)

She tells him to have fun and tries not to think about how he almost looks disappointed when she says that.

She’s not shocked by Conner sitting on her doorstep when she gets home.

“You still have my key,” she points out, stepping over him to unlock the door.

He doesn’t answer, and she suppresses a sigh. He doesn’t look drunk, but she doesn’t have faith in her ability to discern that without seeing him walk and talk.

It takes him a few moments to come inside the apartment, during which Kira starts boiling water for pasta. Eventually, she hears the door shut, then the legs of a kitchen chair scrape across the floor.

Conner still doesn’t talk the whole time she makes dinner. Doesn’t talk while they eat. Doesn’t talk when Kira takes the dishes away. She knows he isn’t drunk by now, and he hasn’t touched the wine she poured for him to have with dinner. Maybe she wouldn’t be angry with him if he was drunk, or maybe she would have just been immediately angry rather than having it build the longer he stayed silent.

She grabs the wine glass last and pours it down the sink, too harsh. “If you just came here for sympathy, you can leave now. You won’t get any from me.”

This seems to finally wake Conner from whatever trace-like state he’s been in since he arrived (maybe since before he arrived). “What?” He sounds confused more than anything, like he has no idea what she’s talking about.

She scoffs, crossing her arms and (for once) looking down on him where he sits at her table. “I’m not going to comfort you over the fact that the ex-boyfriend you dumped out of nowhere is currently trying to move on. If that’s what you’re looking for, get out of my apartment.”

Conner stares at her, his expression blank, then confused, then desperate, then back to blank. “That’s not what I’m looking for.”

She throws up her hands, her fury mounting the longer he stays calm. “Then why the fuck are you here!”

He stands up, suddenly, and she hates that he’s taller than her again so she has to look up to see if he looks angry yet. He doesn’t, which is infuriating. “I can’t just want to come see my friend?”

“Come see your friend just to not speak to her the whole time you’re here? Sure.” She hopes the look she levels at him is scathing before she brushes past him into the living room. It’s an open concept, so it’s not like she has a door or wall separating them, but she feels better sitting on the couch’s arm, purposefully lowering herself instead of having him towering over her without her control.

He looks incredulous, which is a step closer to anger (which is what she wants, isn’t it?) “What do you want from me, Kira? What do you want me to say?”

What  _ does _ she want? Isn’t that the million dollar question?

She crosses her arms again. She doesn’t answer the question. “You don’t get to show up to my apartment all mopey and sad over a boy you decided you didn’t want anymore.”

He looks even more incredulous. “Decided I didn’t want anymore? Is that what you think happened?”

There’s a brief silence during which her brain blanks completely. Then, she explodes.

“And what the fuck am I supposed to think happened when you’ve never said a fucking word about it? Huh, Conner? I’m your friend, aren’t I? If I’m your friend, why don’t I know why you ended the best part of your life out of nowhere on a Tuesday in the mid-afternoon? Why don’t you explain it to me, since it’s so unbelievable that I think that you just fell out of love and broke my best friend’s heart? That’s what I want you to say, Conner. Tell me the fucking truth, for once.”

Conner hasn’t moved from where he stood up from the kitchen table. He might be frozen there, for all she knows. His jaw is clenched, and he’d focused on the table at some point during her outburst. He doesn’t say anything for a few awful moments.

Then, “I’ve never lied to you or him.”

Her anger is simmering lower than before, most of it out in the atmosphere polluting her apartment now, but she still has enough in her to spit out, “Well you’ve sure as fuck never told me the truth about this, that’s for sure.”

Conner’s eyes flash as he looks at her. “You really want to know? Fine. It won’t help anything, but--” He cuts himself off, then drops the glass ball he’s been holding for the past 9 months.

“Ethan got a job offer. Start date straight out of college. Video game development in NYC.” (And the ball shatters everywhere.)

Kira’s stomach drops to her feet. She can’t speak, and Conner just keeps staring at her, his eyes still desperate and searching and raw. “I found the offer letter they mailed balled up in the trash can. Cause all I had been talking about for the past four years was how much I didn't want to move. How much I loved Reefside. And looking at that offer letter… I couldn't even be happy for him, you know? I couldn’t even smooth it out and take it to him and talk him into taking it. He threw it away without telling me.”

“He didn’t tell me either,” is all Kira can think to say to that.

Conner runs a hand through his hair, desperate. “That’s his dream job, Kira.”

“I know.”

“And he threw it away.”

She’s not thinking when she says, “You can’t know it was just for you--”

“Then what else was it for, Kira!” he explodes back, his voice terrible and scratchy, like he’s close to tears but won’t cry. “What else was he staying for?”

Kira presses her lips together, feeling near tears herself ( _ me _ , that terrible part of her brain offers  _ couldn’t he have been staying for me? _ ). “I don't know--”

“Why would he hold himself back like that, if not for me?” Conner just keeps shaking his head. He grabs the back of the nearest chair and stares at the wall, looking like he’s exhausted himself. “He shouldn’t love me if I’m just keeping him from doing what he loves.”

“You don’t get to choose that for him.” Kira thinks her tone might be too sharp, but it’s like she’s watching herself on TV. None of this is happening to her, just some version of her. “Why didn’t you just come to us? Why didn’t you just tell us this was how you felt?” Kira knows she’s shouting again, knows this isn’t the “best way to communicate” ( _ get out of my head, Dr. O _ ), knows this will accomplish nothing, but--

“And what would you have said? That I was being irrational? Or discrediting myself or, or-- that it doesn’t matter because Ethan loves me?” Conner is suddenly staring at her so intensely. His grip on the back of the chair strangling. “Don’t you think I know all that? But isn’t it true anyway?”

For once, she doesn’t have anything to say in return. 

There’s silence for several moments, Conner still staring her down, before he drops his head down and sighs. Wearily, he pulls the chair out and collapses himself into it. 

“He shouldn’t--” He stops, sighs again. Runs his hand through his hair again. Looks so, so tired that Kira wants to just wrap him up and put him away, regardless of how furious she is at him. “He shouldn’t have to love me, if I'm just holding him back. I thought if I left, he would see that, but--” He makes a strangled, anguished noise, cutting himself off, and buries his head in his hands.

She should protest, she knows. Should say stuff about how love doesn’t choose and how he’s wrong and how Ethan deserves to make that choice. But she can’t bring herself to speak.

( _B_ _ ecause you’re holding him back, too _ , whispers the dark, traitorous part of her brain. She shoves the thought aside).

“You wanna know the terrible part?” Conner asks through his fingers. He doesn’t wait for her answer. “I think I love him more, now.”

She just keeps looking at him, willing the part of her brain that has disconnected to reconnect and let her say something but all she can think is ‘ _ Me too. I love you both more now, God, isn’t that fucked?’  _ over and over.

It’s several minutes before she can stand up from the couch. She moves slowly, mostly for herself, trying to keep it together. She crouches in front of him, feeling even smaller now than when he stands up next to her.

She says, softly, the root of what’s bothering her about all of this. “You could have told me, Conner. Just me. Or Dr. O or Hayley or-- I don’t know. If you felt like you couldn’t go to Ethan, you could have come to me. It’s supposed to be us against the world, remember?”

Conner exhales hard. His eyes are closed, his hands holding his head up. “I was scared, Kira. I  _ am _ scared, still.” He opens his eyes, then, looking at her desperately. “Why didn’t he take the job when I left?”

She doesn’t respond. Just takes his hand in hers ( _ they’re not touchy feely _ ).

In another moment, he pulls her into a hug.

The next day, she feels awful. Sick. She didn’t sleep all night, but pretended to be so when Ethan came home so she wouldn’t have to face him. She left the apartment way too early to head to work so she wouldn’t run into him. (She feels bad about avoiding him, so she leaves a note on the fridge telling him she loves him and hopes he had a good date, even though one of those is a lie.)

She goes through the motions at work, dreading going home to face Ethan, even though there’s nothing to dread except her newfound knowledge. She can’t even be excited or thankful when Trent shows up in the middle of a dead time.

She thinks she fakes a pretty convincing smile, but he still cuts suspicious glances at her as she fills his order. He’s seated at the bar again (which he’s been choosing over the table by the window he claims has such a good view more and more recently), so she can’t escape from the questioning looks. Finally, he asks, “Are you feeling okay today, Kira? You aren’t sick or anything, right?”

She tries to smile again, tries to joke (but she thinks she left her humor somewhere near her kitchen table), “Isn’t the bartender supposed to ask the customers how  _ they’re _ feeling?”

He looks at her a moment before deciding to humor her. “Oh, are you a bartender? I thought you were just a waitress at a café.”

She gestures to the space around them. “This is a bar slash café. I am currently tending the bar at this bar slash café. Therefore, I am a bartender. This logic is sound, and you cannot refute it.”

He does her the favor of laughing for a moment at her before saying, “Seriously, though, if you’re sick, you should go home.”

Her smile dims, and she shakes her head. “I’m not sick. Just… emotionally sick, I guess.”

Trent frowns at her, worry creasing his forehead. “Oh, what happened? If you want to talk about it.”

She finds she both does and does not want to talk about it. Trent is harmless, but he is involved in her emotional distress. She loves Conner and Ethan, both as separate entities and together. She’s always loved them; she’s just more acutely aware of the type of love she feels for them. But, there’s Trent, who, well-- She definitely has more-than-platonic inclinations towards. So, he’s part of her emotional distress, in a way.

What she tells him is: “Ethan went on a date last night. Conner came over, and we had a fight, and he told me some stuff I didn’t really want to hear, but I told him to tell me, so it’s my own fault for asking.” She laughs, humorlessly, and flaps a hand in his direction dismissively. “It’s my own fault I’m upset, so don’t mind me.”

He doesn’t look any less worried. “I’m sorry, Kira; that sounds like a rough night. Are you okay?” He winces immediately after saying that. “Sorry, stupid. Of course you’re not okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”

She keeps up her humorless smile. “You’re sweet, but no. Like I said, my own fault.” She hesitates. Maybe he could help with part of it. “You’ve met Ethan,” is how she starts that thought, which was maybe a confusing way to start because Trent quirks an eyebrow at the non-sequitur. 

“Yes, many times. I would even say I consider us acquaintances.”

“You don’t think--” She cuts herself off, thinks about it for another moment before continuing, “You don’t think he would make a decision just because of how he thought other people would feel about it, right?”

Trent shakes his head, looking bemused. “I don’t think any one of you three would ever make a decision you didn’t want to make yourself. I say this with a lot of respect, but you’re the three most headstrong personalities I’ve ever met. Even if there was doubt in a decision, you would just dig your heels in and be more stubborn in standing by it after it was made if someone questioned you.”

“I’m not sure that was a compliment,” Kira says, but her mind is spinning away from the conversation at hand.

“It is, it is!” Trent is quick to reassure, even though she wasn’t really doubting him. “I really admire you three.”

It’s at this moment that another waitress comes up from the back, finished with her break and thus halting serious conversation between her and Trent. They trail off to less serious topics: art and music and ‘ _hey did you catch the last episode of that TV show_.’

Kira’s mind keeps spinning.

She shows up at Conner’s apartment, which feels backwards.

He looks shocked to see her, but before he can say anything, she interrupts his shock by saying, “You made the wrong decision by breaking up with Ethan.”

The shock on his face transforms into something else, something suspiciously close to hurt but landing near anger. “I think I arrived at the same conclusion around, oh I don’t know, six months ago? But thanks for showing up to remind me of my failures.” He starts to close the door on her (which, considering the number of times she’s let him in her apartment when she wanted to shut the door, is incredibly rude), so she shoves her foot in it to keep it from closing.

“I’m not done.” She shoulders her way into his apartment. She hears him scoff and follow her into the tiny living room his front door leads to, probably gearing up for a fight that she has no intention of having. “Your thesis was faulty so your conclusion was a foregone failure.”

“You’ve lived with Ethan too long; you’re starting to sound like him,” is how Conner responds, hurt and anger lacing the tonality.

She faces him in the middle of the living room and holds up her hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not here to fight.”

He stops advancing on her and crosses his arms. “You sound like you are.”

“No, I just want you to listen. Ethan never would have reversed his decision not to take the NYC job, even if you had gone and talked to him about it. He had decided to stay in Reefside already, so he wasn’t going to change his mind.” She tries to keep her tone even and non-confrontational, but Conner is always confrontational. He scoffs and moves to sit on the lounge chair behind her, forcing her to turn around to keep talking to him. “We’re stubborn, Conner. You, me, and Ethan. We dig our heels in, kick and scream, and we’d rather die than change our minds. Exhibit A: me refusing to go back to college. Exhibit B: you refusing to ask for Ethan to take you back. Exhibit C: Ethan still in Reefside.”

Conner is pointedly looking at his (blank) TV instead of at her. He shifts slightly on the chair, his expression pinching for a moment like he’s frustrated. “Well, what the fuck do you want me to do about it now, huh?” It looks like he’s asking the TV.

“Apologize to Ethan for being a stubborn dipshit. Tell him you love him. Beg him to take you back. Stop digging your heels in and doubling down.”

Conner makes a dismissive noise (which has an almost Pavlovian response in Kira to become angry) and stands up, looking at her again. “Ethan went on a date--”

He cuts off, his eyes suddenly focused past her, over her head (fuck his height, honestly).

At the door, which was left wide open.

“I really don’t appreciate being talked about behind my back, just FYI.”

Kira whirls around, almost panicked, but the Ethan she finds standing is the doorway doesn’t look angry. Just searching. Maybe a little sad.

Nothing is said for several moments. Then,

“The date was boring. Whatever you guys are talking about sounds far more interesting. Conner apologizing? Better chance of the dinosaurs returning.”

Ethan sounds monotone. Flat. This isn’t how angry-Ethan sounds. But Kira has no precedent for this. She elbows Conner in the stomach, hard. “Invite him in, and close the fucking door, moron,” she mutters.

What Conner says is, “Close the door; there’s a draft.”

Ethan listens, for whatever insane reason. He even takes his shoes off, which Kira guesses is a polite move, but a strangely powerful one. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, now. 

“Conner, you’re going to have to tell him or else I will,” is what Kira’s brain finally spits out after chugging at half-speed in silence for a good solid minute and a half.

“Tell me what?” Ethan still sounds flat. “That Conner still loves me? Weird way to show it, but okay.”

“No, why he broke up with you in the first place” Kira’s not sure if she’s making this better.

“You didn’t take the job in NYC,” is what Conner blurts out from where he’s still standing behind her. Kira resists the urge to elbow him again, because that is the second time he’s just launched that onto someone in the past 24 hours, and she really thinks it could be handled more delicately, but what does she know; she’s only--

Her spiraling thoughts get cut off by Ethan seeming to choke on nothing. His face finally has an emotion, but she has no clue what it is. “That’s-- What? That’s why? Cause I didn’t take a stupid job?”

“Because you didn’t even consider taking a stupid job, because you decided you wanted to stay in Reefside for me.” She can’t see Conner’s face, but she bets he looks stupid. Or in love. Maybe both.

Ethan stares at Conner hard for a few moments. Then barks out a laugh, which almost sounds real. “Oh my God. Oh my God. You’re the stupidest piece of shit on this Earth; I cannot believe I’m in love with you. Conner, we talked about that. Conner. Conner. Oh my God. We. We talked about why I was staying in Reefside after college. Like. Two years into college we talked about that. What. Why. I’m--” Ethan takes a deep, steadying breath. Runs his hands up and down his face, trying to wipe off the shock. Looks Kira dead in the eyes. Says something absolutely awful to her:

“We talked about Kira; I can’t believe you don’t remember that.”

And that’s what Kira was afraid of, wasn’t it? That she was part of the reason too? So why does her heart try to leap out towards Ethan?

“No, I remember,” Conner says, softly. “I just didn’t think-- I thought, maybe--and I realize this is stupid now, so don’t make fun of me-- I thought you would realize she wasn’t interested and leave anyway.”

Kira has to sit down when he says that. “Not  _ interested? _ ” She can see Conner now, see how embarrassed he looks.

“I  _ said _ I realize it’s stupid now, okay? Obviously you love him,” he grumbles.

She hits his kneecap, which is the part she can easily reach from a seated position, hard. “You too, dipshit. I love you, too.”

He looks a little surprised, somehow. “Me?”

“Yes, and I regret every moment of it.” She puts her head in her hands. “Oh my God. I hate boys. I regret this, supremely.”

Ethan chimes in. “Hey, I have done nothing wrong, ever in my life.”

Kira sighs. “You’re right. And for that, you get to kiss me first; come over here.”

Conner still looks wildly bewildered. “Wait, wait, wait, what’s exactly going on here? Are we all in love? Are we going to date now? Are Ethan and I back together? What?”

“Yes to the first, yes to the second, no to the third,” Kira explains as Ethan takes up residence on the arm of the chair she’s occupying. “It’s a new relationship, so you and Ethan aren’t ‘back’ together, you’re just ‘newly’ together. With me. I’ve decided, and now that I’ve decided you’re not going to change my mind.”

“Yeah, and you don’t get another clean slate after this. No more fucking up,” Ethan adds, but Conner doesn’t look chastised at all. He’s grinning like a kid on Christmas. 

“Whatever you say, babe.”

“Absolutely no calling  _ me _ ‘babe,’” Kira says, but she doesn’t get to stay fake-mad for long, because Ethan kisses her.

They don’t talk a lot the rest of the evening.

(Except, "Hey why the fuck did you even show up at Conner's apartment?" 

Ethan adopts a put out expression. "We're friends; can't we just hang out sometimes?"

"We don't hang out; don't listen to him."

"Traitor."

"Were you looking for me?"

"Well, Kira, you left me a sad, liar's note on the fridge, so maybe I was little worried for you. Sue me."

"Whatever, you love me."

"Yeah, sure, whatever.")

This still leaves Kira with The Trent Problem.

She tells him immediately that she has two new boyfriends, because it absolutely does not feel fair to keep it from him. He’s definitely been flirting back when she flirts.

“I don't mind,” is not what she’s expecting Trent to say. But it is. It is what he says.

She blinks rapidly, several times in a row. “You don’t… what?”

He’s smiling, and it’s real, she knows it is, but her brain keeps tripping over it, trying to convince her he’s faking it. “I don't mind, Kira. You three are great together. I could never imagine trying to get in the way of you guys.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t know why that’s disappointing to her.

“I’m very happy to be your friend, and I look forward to making fun of how disgusting you three are together in public,” Trent adds, looking gleeful.

Just like that, her snark is back. “We are absolutely not a PDA couple. Throuple? Do I have to say the word throuple now?” She’s horrified by this discovery, but Trent just laughs and laughs.

The Trent Thing keeps bothering her, though (maybe since she now doesn’t have to worry about The Conner and Ethan Thing, her thoughts need something new to hyper-fixate on). She’s frowning at her phone one night, about a month into The Throuple Thing (a horrifying moniker which Ethan immediately adopted upon finding out that Kira and Conner hated it). Specifically, she’s frowning at Trent’s contact, which she had added about two days before The Throuple Thing happened. She had added it with the intent of maybe asking him to hang out outside the bar slash café with her, even just platonically, but she feels weird asking him to hang out now. Is that cheating? Emotional cheating? Is she emotionally cheating with her regular? She could argue that she was in love with him before she realized she was in love with Conner and Ethan, but she doesn’t think the argument would hold up in court. Is there emotional cheating court?

“Just ask him out Kira, God.”

She chokes, coughing up half the water she just drank. “I’m fucking sorry, what?”

Conner rolls his eyes from his position on the couch with his arm draped across the back, coincidentally touching Ethan’s shoulders. “Just ask Trent out,” he repeats. “Don’t overthink things.”

“Yeah, I mean, if he was chill about the three of us, you know, existing, maybe he’d be chill about other stuff,” Ethan says, not even looking up from his laptop.

“Other stuff,” Kira repeats, feeling like her brain is lagging. “Like dating a girl who is already dating two other men.”

Conner sighs, like she’s the one being weird. “Yeah. You clearly like him; he clearly likes you. What’s the hold up?”

She stares at him, incredulous. “I don't know! Maybe the fact that he doesn’t want to date three other people!”

Ethan looks up at that, confusion evident in his face. “Uh, who said we had to date him?”

Kira throws her hands up in defeat. “We never talked about the rules! I don’t know what’s even happening here!”

“I know the rules,” Conner volunteers. He sticks a finger out, counting. “One: don’t call Kira ‘babe.’ Two: Ethan sleeps in the middle ‘cause it makes him feel safe. Three: Kira gets to do whatever she wants forever for dealing with our shit for years.” He looks up from his fingers to her. “Pretty sure dating Trent falls under rule three.”

Kira opens her mouth to shout ‘ _ No one ever told me those rules!!!!!’ _ but closes it again abruptly. Shouting at Conner never yielded any results, really. She takes a steadying breath. Finally, (finally), her brain catches up to the conversation.

She looks over at Ethan. “So, you’re really fine with it.”

He smiles at her (big and genuine). “Yeah. Of course. Whatever makes you happy.”

She smiles back, small and private ( _ she loves him she loves him she loves them _ ).

(She realizes the boys reached their threshold for expressing genuine emotions because, as she’s grabbing her keys, she hears Ethan yell, “Go get ‘em, babe!” so she has to yell back, “I’ll pour coffee on your fucking hard drive, I swear to God.”)

  
  


And that, dear friends, is the joke in its entirety: A man walks into a bar. He walks out with a girlfriend who has two boyfriends. And maybe, he gets two boyfriends too. We’ll see. (That’s a joke for another time.) 

_ ~~~  _

_ Oh, partner in crime _

_ I’m going to try _

_ To fall in love with you again. _

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone Is Bisexual In This Universe Because I Say So :) also the FACT that they called it hayley’s cyberspace and not hayley’s comet in the show,,, we should have rioted tbh. cyberSPACE,,, comets are in SPACE
> 
> anyway smash cut to conner joking “hey for someone whose parents hated the fact that she dated girls, you sure did end up with a lot of boyfriends” and kira immediately calling her parents to horrify them with her three (3) boyfriend story.


End file.
